BLUE ANCHOR, N.J. – “Heads up!”
Deep in the woods, the whine of chain saws pierced the fall air, and Steve Garcia shouted a warning to fellow loggers as a 40-foot pitch pine crashed to the ground.
He was chopping down trees to save the forest as part of New Jersey’s effort to beat back an invasion of beetles.
In an infestation that scientists say is almost certainly a consequence of global warming, the southern pine beetle is spreading through New Jersey’s famous Pinelands.
It tried to do so many times in the past, but bitterly cold winters would always kill it off. Now, scientists say, the winters are no longer cold enough. The tiny bug, firmly entrenched, has already killed tens of thousands of acres of pines, and it is marching northward.
Scientists say it is a striking example of the way seemingly small climatic changes are disturbing the balance of nature. They see these changes as a warning of the costly impact that is likely to come with continued high emissions of greenhouse gases.
The disturbances are also raising profound questions about how to respond. Old battles about whether to leave nature alone or to manage it are being rejoined as landscapes come under stress.
“It’s a tremendously serious issue, but it hasn’t gotten anybody’s attention,” said state Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat from Piscataway and the chairman of the Environment and Energy Committee.
Scientists and foresters say the lack of public pressure has meant that the state has been slow to mount an adequate response. They are worried that the beetles will not only devastate the Pinelands, but will also eventually attack coastal pinelands on Long Island and Cape Cod.
In New Jersey, the beetles hit a peak in 2010, when they killed trees across 14,000 acres of state and private land. More recently, the damage has been a few thousand acres per year. But with the beetle now endemic in New Jersey, experts do not think that reprieve will last.
The beetles burrow through a tree’s bark and consume a layer of tissue that provides the tree with nutrients and water. As the evergreens starve to death, they take on the color of a broadleaf forest in autumn.
Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, said the state was working on a “new, comprehensive forestry management plan.” Right now, the state is essentially spot-treating beetle outbreaks in hopes of slowing the infestation.
